


Swoop!™

by florahart



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Couple of OCs - Freeform, M/M, Snape in yoga pants, Snape is not down with Meatless Mondays, Snape needs more exercise, brief misunderstanding as to exclusivity of relationship (ends well), general non-shaming reference to past sex behavior, general non-shaming reference to sex work, group exercise for wizards, like Spin class but for wizards, more fade to black than I expected, references to oral and anal sex, super not about hot-bod Snape just because there's exercise, there is no onscreen broom sex here but there could be, unusual Harry Potter careers, you don't have to be a gym rat to read this I swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:28:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21629872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/pseuds/florahart
Summary: Severus is feeling listless and unwell, and he's only in his fifties so he can't be dying of old age just yet.  Perhaps it's curse damage, or lingering effects of the venom. And, dreadful though visiting a healer might be, perhaps there's medicine.  It might be worth a try.  ...But then the prescription is exercise.  Bollocks. And he's promised to make a real effort.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape, Past Harry Potter/OMC
Comments: 56
Kudos: 230
Collections: Pen15 is Mightier Holiday Gift Exchange 2019





	Swoop!™

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ms_SackvilleWest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ms_SackvilleWest/gifts).



> Ms_SackvilleWest asked for Snape/Harry with an unusual setting, and slow burn. I've been around the block a time or two in the HP fandom and Snarry vicinity specifically, so thinking up a setting that felt unusual to me took me a hot minute, but I'm reasonably confident I did come up with something you haven't seen before. (Slow burn is not among my greater talents, but on the plus side it did take about six or seven thousand words to get them in, you know, the same room? So there's that.) 
> 
> Separately, once I came up with Swoop!™ it was very difficult for me to not entitle this work _[Swoop! There it is!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffCEr327W44) (let me hear you say swoop! chaka laka chaka...)_, but I resisted.
> 
> I am not entirely sure whether the UK uses the ™ symbol in the same way as the US does, but I feel like probably the concept of a registered brand makes sense either way.
> 
> Should you need more information about any of the content tagged, there's an endnote.

“I assure you, Mr. …Spinner, is it? I assure you I did run the tests twice. Your fatigue and malaise are not something for which I can treat you with a potion.”

“Then they are incurable, you mean to say.” This was, of course, the outcome Severus had expected; his exhaustion during the war years had made sense, what with the constant double-agency, the extreme stress of managing at least two lives at all times, and the consistent presence of a megalomaniac and/or his minions; idiot teenagers; or both in every single bleeding day. Now, though, he had no such extreme stressors; he lived quietly, produced potions to order and made a good living doing so because his work was excellent, and kept away from people interested in murdering him. This should have meant he felt better, not increasingly worse, and so he assumed everything taken together had piled up. Most likely, he was heading for the early grave he’d spend several years entirely deserving. He’d only come in for medical advice in case a potion of which he’d somehow never read had popped up in a wing of the literature he didn’t follow.

“No! No, I merely mean, they are not the sort of thing we can magic away with a charm or potion as we would, oh, dragonpox or a simple bone replacement, or for that matter any number of pains and strains. They’re of a different nature, and so restorative potions …well, they might help, some, but they won’t in fact solve the problem. They’d be a stopgap at best, and over time you’d only feel the same symptoms return.”

Severus sat up a bit straighter. “A curse, then? A hex? Then there must be a defensive or reversing spell.” This was an area with which he was comfortable and conversant, at least.

But the Healer, a short but burly man certainly not past thirty with a ridiculous tuft of apple-green hair atop his head surrounded by shaved nakedness and thick red-framed spectacles, and whose unfortunate name was Zalman Wilting, shook his head. “There is not. No curse, no disease agent, no hex, no traumatic injury. It’s rather a case of—”

“You surely are not suggesting that it’s all in my head?” Severus was gathering himself to shout, but Wilting, who was apparently possessed of surprising backbone never the less, shook his head again. 

“Sir, Mr. Spinner, I do hope you’ll hear me out. Now, I am aware that for some, the notion of a more holistic approach to health care is new and strange—”

“You’re not, I hope, about to suggest I take up meditation with ridiculous crystals and absurd chanting. I’ve worked with Divinators before – very much not per my own preference – and shall not do it again.” Severus glowered, but Wilting remained unwilted.

“That _is_ something some people find useful, although my personal opinion is that this is a matter of giving a structure to thought processes and physical self-awareness, rather than a matter of the structure itself providing novel treatment. But I feel as thought you might tend to find it tedious, and in my experience a plan one will stick with is a plan one enjoys. Tedium is not the goal.”

“A plan?”

“Yes. I believe you can return to vigor and have energy, appetite, and libido as you did as a younger man. Are you still prepared to hear me out?”

“Why do I suspect you are about to offer advice for which I will most likely want to painfully excise your testicles? Speaking of libido, which I had previously not mentioned.” Not that he hadn’t observed his malaise to include a lack of interest in sexual behavior, but he was heading into the latter half of his fifties and he’d got along fine with no notable sex life for, well, decades.

“I’d rather you didn’t bend to that impulse, if you please. But you haven’t answered my question.”

Severus narrowed his eyes. “Very well. I shall sit quiet as the proverbial mouse and allow you to describe whatever tortuous approach you wish. I reserve the right to consider castration later.”

“So long as you only consider. Now. You need to bring more activity into your life. You’ve said your work is largely sedentary, and I think that’s the primary root issue." He held up a hand to forestall comment. "No, I know, this is hardly the way wizards operate, but. Muggleborn, me, and it's not all bad ideas on that side, you know? So. We’ll need to discuss your dietary routines, of course, but also? How do you feel about attending classes?”

“Perhaps you haven’t noticed: I am in my mid-fifties. I am hardly the typical student.”

“Ah, not academic classes, although I reject the implication that one ages out of those either. Exercise classes. _Physical_ exercise.”

Severus stared. “What, like ballroom dancing?”

“That’s certainly an option.”

“It is certainly _not_.”

“All right. But the purpose of my question was, are you the sort of person who will cleave to a routine alone and not make excuses, or would you be best served with direction? I won’t necessarily suggest a personal trainer for you, because I feel you might in fact threaten bodily harm the first time she or he required you to do something difficult, and I like to curate my relationships with the trainers I often recommend rather better than that.”

“And so you want to know, if you tell me I must touch my toes fifty times each morning, am I a person with the self-direction and perseverance to do just that?”

“Something of the kind, yes.” Wilting shoved his glasses up his nose and watched for Severus’s response.

“…Yes. Yes, I shall perform all of my exercise alone, in my own home, on my own schedule, and can commit to doing so daily.”

Wilting gave him a dubious look. “I believe I mentioned on your first visit that it was something of a time-saver, having a spell that detects outright lies built into my specs?” He tapped the edge of the frame near his temple. “And so you’re saying things that are true, but which don’t constitute the truth, if you take my meaning.”

“I do not.”

“Uh-huh, and for reference that was an outright lie. But don’t think I didn’t notice that you said you would do ‘all of’ your exercise at home, which would be true if you did none, and that you ‘can’ commit, which is true enough, but only implies that you will in fact do so. It’s not an outright lie, but then, I’m not an outright idiot, so.”

Severus scowled. “Well, I worked with teen-agers for a truly unfortunate amount of time, so I’m a bit accustomed to outright idiots. Fine. What do you suggest, then? Weekly Argentine Tango in Hyde Park? Not that it makes a bit of sense that working more will make me less exhausted.”

“I agree, it sounds counterintuitive, but, bodies are complicated, and it turns out they don’t do well when left at rest all the time. If you think back, I imagine you’ll find that in times past you were on the run a bit more, and it turns out, that matters. Also, to my knowledge, Hyde Park Tango class isn’t a thing, although if they do have one, sure! Give it a whirl. Or, all right, it’s a tango, so I guess a staccato turn of some stripe. But, separate to that, I do have suggestions.” Wilting held out a hand and _accio_ ’d a parchment into it. “Here are some options. You’ll notice there are free trial packages available if you mention I’ve sent you; I recommend giving anything you choose to try at least three or four goes before you conclude you hate it.”

Severus didn’t comment on his past including more time ‘on the run’; he suspected Wilting had no idea how literally that was true. Instead, he just said, “I generally know if I hate something more or less immediately. Hating things is a common experience for me.”

“Oh. I’m sure you do, Mr. Spinner, and I’m sure it is. However, commencing an exercise program tends to have complicated effects. At first it will make you tired and sore and probably rather hungry, and so making a decision in that frame of mind may not be a path toward well-considered choices.”

Severus took the parchment and glanced down the list on it. “What on earth is ‘country line dancing,’ and why would one do it?”

“Ah, I expect if you contact them they can explain. Perhaps that can be the first thing you try. Keeping in mind that if you hate it, you should still give a couple more attempts before you come to a permanent decision.” 

Wilting reached for another sailing parchment. “Now. Let’s also see if we can try to increase your vegetable and protein intake by one serving per day from the list here—if you can; I think it’ll help. Honestly, if you feel extra hungry, perhaps add a bit more still. Don’t feel like you’ve got to toss out all your sweets in one go—”

“I hardly eat sweets. By which I mean, they usually aren’t to my taste, besides chocolate, which I consider more restorative than anything else.”

“Excellent, then there will be that many fewer habits to change. So: Add a protein portion – eggs, perhaps some yoghurt? Nothing terribly fatty unless it's the kind of fish whose oils are good for you. And report back in six weeks.”

“Six weeks! If I’m still this exhausted in six weeks, perhaps I’ll just molder away in my bed.”

“Perhaps, but then you’d miss the opportunity to tell me I was very wrong, and I feel as though you might relish such a chance. See Celia on the way out, and she’ll set your next appointment.” Wilting stood and went to the door. “Three or four honest tries, Mr. Spinner, and then either keep on or choose another option from the list. I will ask directly when I see you next, so either work out how to defeat the charm, or, and this is my preference, just make a good effort.”

Severus considered making a rude gesture, but since taking up exercise was in fact just about the only thing he hadn’t tried on his own, he decided, with no small amount of trepidation, to take the doctor’s advice. He didn't, however, stop to see Celia, who was a vapid cooing twit of the sort he made a hobby of avoiding. When he was ready to make another appointment, he would owl like a civilized person.

\--

Severus had expected this country line dancing activity to be some sort of endeavor in which one performed gymnastic feats whilst manipulating shapes or figures in some way. In fact, it was not that at all, and he opted to cease attendance after two tries. Two was close to three, and since it had turned out that moving in unison with a group (all of whom were standing in a line, which was apparently the genesis of the name) meant that every time he erred in arranging his feet in the steps which were to be memorized and undertaken in order and to the rhythm of music which was heavy on plucked-string instruments (and lyrics involving dogs, women, and pickup trucks, as though his years teaching dimwitted teenagers weren’t punishment enough for his past sins) the result was a tangle of unhappy sweaty people, and this happened often. He concluded this sort of activity was not among his greater skills, and thought he had made a fair effort. 

His next visit was to a facility which offered many classes, most of which sounded complicated. He didn’t want to participate in anything which sounded like beating, shredding (this was actually apparently a selling point? That one would become shredded?), or terrorizing, and although the extremely fit young man at the counter had assured him that all the cursing in the classes was harmless, merely a way that people expressed how hard they were working, still, it all sounded terrible. Also, the extremely fit young man was definitely a Muggle, as were nearly all, or perhaps actually all, of the participants in the classes, and so Severus was not at all sure that they understood what cursing really could be; this left their reassurances a bit hollow.

He did attempt one class with an ambiguous name which turned out to include a variety of different ways one could jump up in the air and a different variety of ways one could hold heavy objects and pretend to sit down before standing right back up, or pick up the weights before immediately lowering them again; none of this seemed in any way “fun,” but at least when he moved the wrong direction there was no tangle of limbs as the entire line fell down in a row. He attended the requisite three sessions, continued to hate it, and moved on.

Five weeks in, he had completed his three sessions (usually) in half a dozen disciplines, and while he was finding that he was hungrier and heartier-feeling, still, if he was to keep at this he was going to have to either tolerate something he hated on an ongoing basis, an event he had made promises to himself to never do again, or find something that wasn’t entirely dreadful. 

Maybe he should try to find a way to tolerate a personal trainer after all. Surely there were some who would accept his foul mood and low-end abuse in exchange for their weekly fee? But as far as he could determine, this would have to involve either the trainer coming to him at home (no.) or him attending sessions at a facility where other people would be able to see him, and that would be no better than the group classes, and so this seemed impossible as well.

So he went back to the list.

There were still three or four programs on the list, but they mostly seemed like more of the same. Swing dancing? Ugh. Swimming? No, on costume alone; also, Severus was well aware his best water-related skill was sinking. “Body pump”? The description, when he rang them with the Muggle telephone he hated but had acquired with the flat, sounded like it was another case of sit down and stand up, and thank you, no.

So that left “Swoop!™.” This was evidently a new type of class; it had appeared on the list only two weeks ago, which was the first time Severus had realized the list was self-updating. A cursory examination of the short description said the studio was only just past a year old, so he concluded the recent list update had to do with a new arrangement with Zalman Wilting. 

Which probably meant he was going to have to try it just in order to be able to say he had done a bit of everything.

He sighed and picked up the damned telephone to inquire.

When he rang off, he didn’t know a great deal more than when he’d started. Swoop!™ was evidently “Just like spinning but maybe sort of crossed with aerial silks, only wizard-style,” and that he should “wear clothes that allowed free movement, preferably no robe over to get caught in the workings.” 

Spinning? …webs? wool? about in a circle? Well, at least the wizard part meant that probably there would be no frustrating speaking at cross-purposes with Muggle trainers again. This didn't explain the telephone contact process, but in the post-war world a number of Muggle contrivances had become more commonplace, and evidently the new generation thought telephones were more dignified than crouching into a fireplace. Or so he'd gathered from involuntarily reading the headlines on various tabloid newspapers whilst purchasing his vegetables.

In any case, they did have a “beginners” class in just two hours, and they had plenty of space for him, so after grumbling to himself for the duration of a good cup of tea and examining the list one more time, he put on some stretchy trousers which he had acquired in the interests of attending a yoga class and a fairly close-fitting knit shirt, and Apparated to the nearest appropriate point.

“Hello!” A cheerful young witch wearing a somewhat worn vest with virtually no back and which clung to her aggressively, with what appeared to be a faded-to-nothing stylized image related to something called 'soul cycle' on the front, greeted him enthusiastically. “Have you been, before, or are you a perfect virgin?”

Severus frowned. “Have I misunderstood? Is there a sexual element?”

She laughed. “No, silly! That would be a whole other kind of exercise, and at a first glance you don’t seem the sort hoping to do it in a group setting? Although if you are, I don’t judge. There’s enough judgment in the world about _who_ people want to snuggle up to, to add to it by being worried about _setting_ , right?” Severus wondered if he had had a small stroke, but she was still speaking and at least now beginning to make more sense. “Plus, the boss wouldn’t hire or tolerate bigots, so yes, judgment free here. But I meant, sometimes people do the beginner class two or three or even ten times before they give the full class a go. I’m only here Wednesday evenings for the beginners – I have others; mid-level Tuesday afternoon and Saturday mid-day, and a ridiculously hardcore Friday morning crew are the rest of my personal schedule for now – but anyway, so you might have been at another of the class times, of course. You’re here for the very first time, then?”

He paused long enough to be certain she had run all the way out of words, since it had seemed like that might be something that would happen just before the sun went nova, then asked, “Is this relevant?”

“Sure!” She offered him a wad of fabric which turned out to be a sleeveless top much like her own, only it was neon green and had a letter V in large purple print on the front and back with a smaller Swoop!™ logo on one shoulder. “That way everyone knows you might not know the cues and can maybe give you a little bit more leeway. Put that on, and I’ll get you set up. I’m Emma, by the way.”

“I’m …sure you are.” Severus somehow found himself pulling the horrible shirt over his head and over top the other shirt while he followed Emma. He scowled when he realized he’d done so. “Is there a charm on this shirt?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Good catch—most people don’t notice a bit. You’re free to take it off if it bothers you, though. It’s nothing awful. Just some encouragement thread woven though, since a lot of virgins get all worried they’ll suck at this, which they won’t, but the boss wanted to help people over the hump, you know? Now, let’s see. I think a size…” she looked him up and down. “Let’s give you a six, but you can always adjust next time if it’s too big or small or just, you know, not quite what you like. It's not quite like how wands choose the wizard, but in a way, it feels a little similar..”

And with that, she reached into an equipment closet and handed him a relatively short-handled, long-bristled broom which did not at all feel like a wand although somehow he could feel the sense of why she would say so, and ushered him into a wide, tall, open room with mounds emanating from each of the six surfaces and dozens of cables anchored at many points. She picked up a cable end and indicated a slot and clasp on the broomstick. “Here, connect to this, and I’ll explain the rest once the rest of the class arrives. I'm going to go change to teach, but I'll be right back. Two shakes." And then she was gone.

Severus let the shirt tug him further into the room, although significant doubts were beginning to form as to what, exactly, he’d got himself into.

\--

When he woke the nest morning, his entire body was sore from knees to shoulders, and he stood under a hot shower for a full thirty minutes trying to loosen up the knots and work out what hurt the worst.

Sitting down with his tea answered the question handily; the part of his arse that had been in contact with the narrow broom seat was somewhat opposed to being sat upon. He’d never been sore just exactly like this before, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Because it turned out, he’d had, well, _fun_. The music had been loud with a throbbing beat, but not angry; the lyrics had been, when he’d been able to decipher them, either upbeat or encouraging most of the time. The room had gone dark – dim, really – when the class started, and he and six other people (only one of whom had on the virgin shirt as well) had climbed onto their brooms, taken a brief lesson in connecting and confirming the anchors and adjusting the seat placement and hand-grips, then started to dip, weave, climb, and, and here was clearly where the name of the class derived from, _swoop_ in unison, using cues Emma called out from her own broom in the center. He hadn’t felt like he was doing busywork, even though he was literally flying in place, and what the fuck, he’d had _fun_. 

He found himself grinning slightly into his reflection in the teacup.

It was odd. 

He knew how to fly on an actual broom, of course, although he didn’t do it particularly often since Apparating or the Floo Network took care of most of his transportational needs; however, this was a different beast. The walls were apparently painted and/or charmed to produce different scenes that had something to do with how the director (instructor? leader?) had categorized the song, and there had been flashing colored beams of light and shudders in the cables when the bass turned up, and all in all, it had felt freeing in a way Severus would not have anticipated he would ever enjoy.

So now he wanted to go back.

He wondered what a non-beginner class was like. He didn’t feel as though what he’d done the night before had been particularly simple. There had been a significant amount of leaning into cable tensions and adjusting hand-grips to alter weight balances, as well as spins, dips, and various other moves she had defined, which they’d practiced in different combinations and then done in series at her direction, which she called out move-by-move: “Swoop quarter-left! Dip right and curl! Spin, spin, spin and swoop! Again, other way!”

Well, Emma had said he could do the beginning class as many times as he wanted, so perhaps he’d give it another try, and then ask about the distinction.

He rang the studio and placed his name on the list for a second class, this evening at six, then went into the kitchen to make a better salve than anything he had ready to hand. His inner thighs were starting to throb and wobble, and the small muscles between his ribs had begun to report that leaning was, in fact, taxing.

He figured eight hours with a good salve would fix him up well enough.

\--

The second morning was hell. He was in hell. Actual Christian hell with damnedness, which looked like his bedroom but felt like fire. His arse hurt in a very personal, perineal, way, and the long muscles connecting the inner surface of the knee up into the inside of the hip screamed every time he moved, as though some sort of incredibly specific _Cruciatus_ curse had been cast. 

Actually, now he thought about it, he wondered idly whether that might be possible: an alteration of the curse such that the pain was tolerable as long as one remained still, but terrible in the crotch area if one attempted to walk or run or otherwise exit the premises. He imagined the Aurors would like such a modification, and he even started scribbling ideas on the back of a scrap of parchment whilst he waited for the kettle to heat.

What, a man had to keep his hand in! It wouldn’t be unforgivable if it were a tool in the hands of law enforcement and could be applied humanely!

In any case, he’s started on some of the basic modification arithmetic when the kettle whistled, and then he made his tea, drank it standing, and went back to the shower for another 30-minute heating.

His second class, as she’d indicated originally, was not led by Emma. Lionel was an enormous man, broad-shouldered and muscular in tiny short pants and a vest that looked prepared to dismantle itself down to the thread if he were to flex in the least, but his musical choices, different to Emma’s, were instrumental, heavy on woodwinds, and …odd? But once they’d had the set-up lesson and gone through the practicing of the moves again – Severus had noticed they placed them in the same order, so probably there was some standardization to the system? – his movement combinations suited the music, as well: long curls that meant holding difficult angles for extended periods and perilous-feeling dives that seemed as though they might drive one through the floor.

He thought about taking a third class that evening while he applied his salve and then he thought about while he was sorting through his mail. Then he thought about it, with anticipation, while he was setting up the ingredients to start a batch of the Dittany extraction and numbing agent they used in the critical injuries department, when recovery wasn't quick or simple.

And then he thought about it while he started the distillation process.

Probably it was a terrible idea.

He did it anyway.

The third leader, Dietrich, was rail-thin and wore unrimmed spectacles and ear-decorations that involved earlobe holes large enough one could, in fact, fuck him in the ear if one were so inclined, and played screamy loud electronic music whose primary lyrical thrust seemed to be _fuck you, the horse you rode in on, everyone you know, and everyone you’ve met, and do it hard, rough, raw, and sideways._

It was a worldview Severus could get behind.

He woke up on the third night with an unrelenting charley horse in his calf, a pounding dehydration headache because he had failed to follow the perfectly clear instructions Emma and Lionel (but not Dietrich) had offered about fluid restoration, and a burning curiosity about how one became a Swoop™ instructor, since there seemed no rhyme nor reason to the sort of individual who found it suited.

He hobbled naked to his kitchen workbench for another salve, drank a liter of water while he waited for the bloody stuff to work, and took the little jar back to bed with him because probably he was going to need to apply more in the morning before even trying to get up.

And also, he concluded as he sat back down to pull the covers over him, because his crotch was so fucking bruised he might as well have been fucked by an elephant, or he supposed the producers of Dietrich’s music. He hadn’t especially noticed on getting up, but probably that was because he’d more or less levitated out of bed with the cramp; the entire area from mid-arse to mid-thigh was so pressure-sensitive he lay down immediately just so his weight wouldn’t be concentrated upon it.

He rolled to his side and scooped up a dollop of salve, reaching behind himself to rub it into, for lack of a more clinical term, his inner lower arsecheeks. And the backs of his hamstrings. And, once it started to work there and he rolled back onto his back, his inner thighs, perineum, and groin.

It felt fantastic, and he set the little jar on the night-table to consider whether to do anything about the unexpected (although probably in principle unsurprising) erection resulting from rubbing a slick goo onto his balls, bruised or otherwise. He decided against, although, huh. Perhaps his libido was in fact recoverable.

Not that he was in any kind of relationship, or had any idea how to commence one after all this time, so all this meant was either ignoring the situation or making time for masturbation. 

Well, there were worse problems to have.

\--

He meant to get up and schedule another class, but he woke at dawn, found himself with another throbbing erection but somewhat less soreness throughout the area, and decided to make time for masturbation. Honestly, why not? Although on consideration it had been so long he wasn’t actually convinced the entire system still worked as expected, and if it did not, he was _definitely not_ going to be sharing this information with Zalman Wilting.

But, he thought he still might as well find out.

Unfortunately, his calves and ribs cramped painfully, and repeatedly, and so he kept having to stop and wait out another knot. Eventually, he concluded the cramp was going to just be part of the experience, but that he didn’t actually want to stop. So that was new.

He wasn’t sure what to make of the resulting orgasm, which was long, powerful, and exhausting. And probably the single most satisfying thirty seconds of his life. He’d never found pain appealing, so perhaps it was just that it had been months.

Or there was something he hadn't considered in the salve, which, to be fair, he hadn't calculated for use as a sex potion. But that was for later.

He barely managed to remember that a scourgifying spell was preferable to waking back up stuck to the sheets, and muttered one as he rolled back over and went back to sleep.

When he woke again it was nearly noon, his balls were throbbing, and he realized he’d not eaten since supper when his stomach growled so loudly he asked “What _is_ it?” aloud before realizing it hadn’t been someone asking him a question.

He got up, put the kettle on, fried up a large portion beans and tomatoes with onions and a rather misshapen courgette, and considered whether he wanted to poach an egg to place on top. Perhaps _two_ eggs.

It was probably the largest meal he’d eaten in fifteen years, and that was a continuation of a pattern that had emerged over the last several days; Swoop!™ took a lot of energy, and he was needing more fuel to keep up. He was certainly going to need to visit the market today rather than on Monday as he usually did. He fetched the paper while his meal cooled slightly, and then sat down to eat and read.

On page four was an article about the new broom-based exercise craze taking over the countryside, along with a coupon for three free rides (beginner or level one only; Severus thought that was probably wise). There was information for the studio he’d visited, and also a list of other franchises, as well as a discussion of the anonymous proprietor’s plans for continuing expansion “as long as the interest holds and excellent instructors can be trained.” 

Severus wondered for a moment about this anonymous proprietor, but then sidetracked himself with wondering whether this publicity was going to make it more difficult to keep finding a slot in the beginner class, and resolved to stop in and set up bookings for perhaps four classes in the coming week on his way to the market. 

He frowned. Emma had said she had a Saturday slot, hadn’t she? Perhaps he could get a feel for the more advanced options with her. All three beginner classes had been good in different ways, but she had made him feel welcome without seeming to notice his trepidation, and he appreciated that.

He finished his food and went to stand in hot water some more, stretching and moving through the ache of nearly every muscle in his body and wondering if the stretching he was doing now was the appeal he’d never previously seen in yoga.

Maybe one yoga class a week wasn’t a terrible idea. He’d only attended the one class and hated it, but he _had_ promised Wilting he would give things three tries before dismissing them, and he thought he recalled there had been a Friday evening option listed.

\--

Yoga, he concluded as he left the class he’d barely made it to after dropping off his market goods and hurriedly changing his clothes, was very different whilst desperately sore than it had been when he was just trying it to check off the list. In fact, on his first try the instructions about breathing had been an annoyance, and he’d wondered how anyone could tolerate the ridiculousness of being directed to do a thing which humans did instinctually and constantly for the whole of their lives.

His screaming hamstrings, though, had apparently been enough to disrupt the smooth process of breathing, and he’d _needed_ someone to remind him: in through the nose, two, three, four, and ouuuuuut through the mouth, blowing from deep in his belly, pushing away distraction and pulling close focus and all the other nonsense the extremely bendy young woman had been spouting.

He still hadn’t _enjoyed_ his yoga experience, but he did have to admit he felt looser, calmer, and, distressingly, more prepared to enjoy other things.

Fucking exercise.

Fucking Wilting.

He had committed to giving all this an honest effort, but he also really had not expected any of it to work, and so it was only now that he was realizing: he was the sort of person who wanted to purchase clothing specifically for exercise, who wanted to go fly a broom to nowhere several times a week, and who might, if he were not careful to restrain himself, _evangelize to others_ about the wonders of Swoop!™

He grumbled at himself as he walked home. He groused at himself as he prepared roasted veg and bread pudding. He complained silently while he ate, and scowled at his soap dish when he went to shower again before bed.

And then he got up on Saturday morning, masturbated (still exceptional; he wondered if he should be tracking this in some sort of a journal), fixed breakfast, put on his new _Swoop!™_ vest with his new stretchy trousers and his new stiff shoes with sticking charms built into where the footrest would fall, and set off to find out how Emma’s regular class would be.

\--

“Yes?” Severus said, putting the telephone to his ear on a Sunday afternoon a month later. He wasn’t sure who might be calling, since he virtually never gave out this number, but it wasn’t until after he’d picked up that he’d recalled it might be a stranger soliciting money, or a stranger incompetent at telephones who had rung the wrong number.

“Mr. Spinner?”

Severus frowned. All right, then it was in fact someone who had this number. He’d never _legally_ changed the name, but more people knew his legal name than knew his face, and this was also true among Muggles who of course did not know the nature and scope of the war, but had learned some highly edited details released for public consumption; hiding or memory-wiping the events of that last year had proven more than the tattered Ministry could manage, and so they’d compromised. In any case, his name was still an impediment and one could only tolerate being spit upon for so long, so he’d gone with the simple solution of name disposal. His neighbors understood his name to be ‘Sedgwick Spinner,’ although he was probably going to murder the university students living and throwing obnoxious parties two doors down the next time one of them said the phrase, “yo, Sedge,” to him.

Finally, it occurred to him that probably he should answer the party speaking to him. “This is he,” he said.

“Perf. This is Wilting. We’d agreed to check in after six weeks, and it’s been nearly ten.”

Ah, yes. Severus frowned first at the notion that someone had said ‘perf’ to him as though he were the sort of person to whom bizarre word-shortenings were an acceptable mode of communication, and then frowned again as the substance of the message came through. “Wasn’t _I_ to be in touch with _you_ , if I needed further assistance?”

“Yes, but as you didn’t check back, I thought I had best make sure you hadn’t …what did you say? Moldered away in your bed? Shall I assume you have not?”

“Probably. I don’t believe apparitions can make use of Muggle telecommunications devices.”

“Most wizards don’t either, but that seems to be changing with the new generation and even more and more wizards your age are starting to use them. In any case, you should come in, we can check your levels and figure out what’s working for you, and you can complain some more about my methods. Ten on Tuesday all right?”

“What? Yes, no, let’s see. No. No, I’ve an appointment after ten on Tuesday and I don't want them to abut.”

“I see. Well, perhaps next Friday, then? I can see you at one.”

Severus considered his plans. He'd meant to attend classes at both times, with Emma at eleven on Tuesday and Martha on Friday at half one. But, there _was_ a class at a quarter past nine Friday that he could switch to. He wasn’t sure who the coach was, but so far there had, shockingly, been things he’d liked about all of them except one, a tiny and sour-looking man named Roderick who seemed intent upon the infliction of pain. Severus had gone so far as to fill out the customer satisfaction survey about Roderick. 

But he was sure it wouldn't be Roderick as he had checked the timetable thoroughly in order to rule out attending his class again. So, that could work. He’d need to rearrange his shipping schedule for the triple-shipment batch of Pepper-Up St. Mungo’s had ordered, but if he merely started it a few hours earlier… “Friday will be fine. I shall see you then.”

He rang off and turned to review his production plans in case there was anything else he’d need to shift. There wasn’t; he had sent out batches of most of the truly complex brews last week and unless something very unexpected happened over the week-end, no one would need him to start working on anything interesting for at least ten or twelve days.

He contacted Swoop!™ Studios Battersea (a new one had opened in Wanstead, but he hadn’t been) to update his booking and confirm he knew the 9:15 was a level 4 ride because sometimes people got sick their first times, and headed off to his now-routine Sunday yoga night.

Maybe tonight he would set his palms flat on the floor in forward fold.

\--

Severus was in the middle of setting up his ride – number 7 broom, two 8-gauge cables and a back-end 9, footrests set on 4, handgrips full forward – when he heard a familiar voice.

What. The. Fuck. He looked up from beside his broom and stared.

“I know you’re all expecting Jasper today, but he’s gone and sprained his neck or some such, and so you get me. Joy of being the boss: when shit happens, you deal, right? I have his playlist and ride design for context, though, so we won’t be doing anything like my midnight ballbuster rides even though I've made a few actual music changes. You know, in case anyone was worried. I think I’ve had most of you in the class Martha leads now on Wednesdays, but there are a couple of new names to me. Don’t worry, we’ll all be great friends in the end. Where’s Rachael?” 

Severus kept staring as Harry Potter, fucking _Harry Potter_ who evidently _hired people_ and _was the boss_ , greeted a young woman with white-blonde hair and enormous breasts. He considered bolting for the door (and never coming back), but as Emma had told him early on: the branded gear contained encouragement threading (it had turned out this was true for the non-virgin shirts as well, if to a lesser degree), and damn it, he _loved_ this class. And he could outride, or at least keep up with, Harry Fucking Potter. He could.

Also, and he told his newly awakened cock to shut the fuck up about this, Harry Fucking Potter had the musculature now that Severus had come to understand was one of the results of frequent high-difficulty rides, and it was, for fuck’s sake, nice for looking at.

Bugger.

He went back to tightening the handgrips and ignored the situation as he swung his leg over and shimmied a little, settling in and checking his work.

Potter read from the list.

“Sedgwick – oh, hullo. I think we did meet once before. Any questions?” Potter was looking directly at him, but although it was perfectly clear he knew to whom he was speaking, he wasn’t giving any sign anyone else would likely notice.

Maybe Severus would get out of here with his identity intact.

“Ah, no, although I wasn’t aware the ‘boss’ was local; the newspaper article I saw recently indicated anonymous ownership.” And Harry Fucking Potter was the opposite of anonymous. Honestly.

“Oh. Well, yes. It's not a _secret_ , exactly, but I also don't allow the papers to print my name because you can imagine the shitshow. So, people can come here, and ride, and maybe they stumble upon my class and maybe not, but they don't get here to see, you know, this." He pointed at his forehead. "You won't be able to tell anyone who doesn't know, I don't think. Unless you've special skills I _don't_ already know about? Anyhow, this is the flagship. I keep one ride a week for myself even though I’ve mostly filled the schedule with other coaches while I’ve been building up other sites. Recently Wanstead and Leeds, of course, but next week I have a meeting all the way out in Falmouth. There are quite a lot of Falcon faithful who want to imagine themselves Keepers or what have you.”

“I… see.”

“But I should move on. This isn't my usual class; my midnight ride is a beast, but like I said—”

“I expect I can keep up,” Severus said, his voice surprising even him with how annoyed he sounded.

Potter shrugged and went on to make eye contact with another leggy blonde, this one named Marie, who evidently had suddenly forgotten how to place her feet so as not to slide. 

Severus rolled his eyes, adjusted his handgrips again, resettled his feet on the rests, and vowed to give Potter no reason whatever to have to adjust anything downward on his account.

\--

“And you say you did this at _Swoop!™_?” Zalman Wilting looked more closely at Severus’s wrists and hands, frowning. “How?”

“Idiocy,” Severus said.

“Yours, or theirs?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well. If it’s theirs I’ll stop recommending them. Surely you don’t think I want people to break bones, rend flesh, and dislocate joints in their pursuit of a sustainable exercise experience.”

Severus paused, then blew out a breath. “Mine. My idiocy. I signed up for a level 4 class, ignored the warnings, and …was not particularly well-prepared for the intensity of the experience. I’ll do better the next time.”

Wilting squinted at him. “So you mean to continue on. At Swoop!™ The exercise that has turned out to be your soulmate program is indoor broombucking to a beat.”

“Yes. What. Broombuck--never mind. Yes, I found I quite like it, and one bad experience – please simply repair my shoulder. I can see to the bruising and blisters on my own.”

“I’m sure you can, but I’d like to look at the rest of your numbers, and doing that while you’re in pain will be counterproductive.” Wilting moved through a series of spells and charms, then sprayed a potion Severus had made himself on the mess that was his right palm. “That should numb it, and the charm will knit everything back together fairly quickly. Left hand’s already well on its way. Now. You know the system: sit in the sling there, and we’ll see what we see.”

Severus sat in the sling, waited for the dials to still, and looked expectantly at Wilting.

Wilting grinned. “You’ve been working hard, Snape.”

“What?” Severus was standing before he thought about his fucking shoulder, which reminded him immediately that it was injured. “What did you say?”

“I said, You’ve been wor-- …damn it. My apologies. Your identity is your own, and I respect your right to be called what you will, but that’s why I was surprised you would take to… Anyway. My professional social failings are not the issue and I do apologize. Mr. Spinner, every measure we have is improved, and it looks as though you’ve put on a good two kilograms of lean body mass.”

“You …knew my name was a lie?”

Wilting tapped the frame of his glasses. “Of course. Your file has the identity you listed, though. It was just my stupid mouth that didn’t keep up. Now. How are you doing for dietary changes?”

Severus considered, for the second time that day, bolting for the door, then shook his head and remained where he was. “I’ve been considering ‘meatless Mondays’,” he said.

"Oh?"

"Yes. They're asinine. If one wishes to pursue a vegetarian lifestyle, depriving oneself of the joy of a good roasted ham or beef stew, one ought to do so without a clever name and a part-time schedule."

Wilting looked at him for a long moment, then shrugged. "Works as a gateway of sorts, for some, but based upon the ferocity with which you've taken to the classes, I imagine you are probably not such a one."

"I am not. However, I did explicitly choose to review the charts regarding protein and vegetable choices, and have made minor changes there. None of them involve eating mashed soy product."

"Then let's just see how the shoulder charm is coming along, and I'll let you be on your way. You'll remember to check back in, hm, let's say another six months, if nothing brings you in sooner and you continue to feel well?"

"I will. And before you ask, not only will I remember, which is a true but incomplete answer to your actual question; I will actually do so."

“Very good.”

\--

Upon consulting the timetable, Severus found there were five level-four classes per week, scattered throughout the day, and two Midnight Ballbusters, on Tuesday and Friday night. Tuesday was taught by Mbeke, which caused Severus a moment of dissonance; she also taught a couple of level ones, and she was approximately the size of a just-weaned Labrador with the demeanor to match. Well, perhaps she channeled all of her aggression into Tuesday night.

Potter clearly taught the Friday night class, even though the timetable said “Harpo.” Which, obviously, was code to keep out the riff-raff. 

It didn't say much for Potter's social life, but of course, this was no concern of Severus's. What did he care if the boy spent every Friday night shouting at enthusiasts flying artificially about a room?

He placed reservations for level three classes eight times the next two weeks, plus a level four that was probably not going to be taught by Harry Fucking Potter the Saturday after next, and put the entire topic out of his mind. He wasn't doing a class today, since his shoulder was still delicate, but there was plenty of work he could do one-handed if he planned his time and space carefully.

He was just transferring the last of the bat-toe distillation into a labeled phial when his telephone rang. Again, he was expecting no one, and this time Wilting had no real reason to call unless he was annoyingly checking up after their recent interaction. He picked up and said, “Hello?”

“Mr Spinner?”

Severus couldn’t _not_ recognize the voice, so he rolled his eyes at the postal owl who was just dropping a new order from the shop in Devon, and replied, “Anonymous Exercise Entrepreneur?”

Potter laughed. “Fair.”

Severus waited, but no more information was forthcoming. Finally, he said, “Well? Have you rung to make sure I don’t plan legal action regarding my injuries?”

“Yes and no. The warnings you ticked when you arranged for the class are fairly binding because, contrary to your experience, I am not an idiot. However, I did want to see that you were all right, and apologize for …maybe showing off a little. I probably went just enough too hard, and it wasn’t fair.”

“Wasn’t fair.” Severus lifted a brow as though this might be visible to the other end of the line and waited for clarification.

“No. Not to the class overall, although since I do know most of them – from the studio, I mean, not from, you know, alarming near-death scenarios no one should experience – most people there had a better sense of, like. Anyway, but mostly not fair to you, because apparently I still want you to think of me as competent and felt as though the best way to demonstrate that was to cause you to fly uncontrolled out of your seat if I could.”

Severus snorted loudly. “Well, you seem to have a great flair for whirling about on a broom in close quarters; I do have to give you that. Although I could have done without the double… what did you call it? Barrel roll?”

“Yes, those are a bit much for level 4. The cable management is a matter of some really particular timing. Although, honestly, you had that on the first try. Which, I’m not saying I was surprised; timing and precision are kind of your thing.”

“My thing.” Severus waited again. 

“Sure. But so I wanted to apologize and see if you wanted a free session or three to make up for my being an arse.”

“I am not unable to pay the fee.”

“Yep, didn’t think you were. Hey, okay, so you don’t like that idea, which by the way is definitely Hermione's fault or at least her suggestion because I went and pestered her to explain to my why I was feeling like such a complete tosser about the whole thing, but if you don't like that, maybe you let me buy you a cuppa and we’ll reminisce?”

“About near-death scenarios no one should experience?”

“Exactly so," Potter said, blowing out a little gusty breath. Severus found he had no legitimate objection. Well then.

“I have tea here, and was considering making a pot,” he said, even as he questioned his own sanity for inviting Harry Fucking Potter to his home. And then his mouth went right on speaking. “Also, I will accept one free class if it is your ‘Midnight ballbuster’, but I shall require some instruction first as to what the difficult bits entail, and in any case it will have to wait until my shoulder finishes healing.”

“Your shoulder?”

“I dislocated my right shoulder attempting the third barrel roll. The anti-clockwise one.”

Potter inhaled sharply. “That was fifteen minutes from the end of the ride.”

“Yes, well, it was somewhat uncomfortable.”

“Somewhat? First of all, okay. You’re an idiot, because I not only have basic medical experience for this job, but also from the aforementioned near-death thing, and so I could have just fixed it on the spot. You wouldn’t still be hurting. Second? You did the spiral without your dominant hand?”

“Well, the other choice was quitting in front of a group. I’m not sure you’re aware, but this is an action contrary to my personality.”

Potter laughed. “I don’t feel very surprised, actually, but still. So, I'm to come to you? For tea?"

"If you must. Have you got my location from my registration paperwork as well, or does a man have the privacy he might expect?"

Potter laughed again. "Sn..pinner, you haven't changed a bit, and also how about you go ahead and tell me where to meet you."

"I have changed; I have aged. And mellowed."

"I hear that's a thing, although I don’t believe it is a thing you did. The mellowing. Aging isn’t optional, as far as I can tell. So I aged and started flying brooms really hard in enclosed spaces, but to each his own."

Severus offered his address before he thought too hard about where this was going, rang off, and went to put on the kettle again.

\--

It was well past eight when the boy – and Severus knew he was being disingenuous in his own head, calling him that; Potter was past thirty-five and well out of adolescence – stood to go. Somehow, they’d talked for nearly five hours, covering a great deal of ground.

Some of it had involved shouting, shouting at each other that had been waiting fifteen years and more, and perhaps, Severus acknowledged with a wry grimace, there was something to be said for not bottling things up. Sparks, literal sparks, had flown a couple of times, and that hadn’t all been a matter of Potter failing to control his magic. Severus had also set off a small cascade himself at one point, and at least one other time it had been something of a combined conflagratory effort. And yet… he’d _enjoyed_ the conversation. And the company. A lot.

What the fuck. Enjoying the company of Harry Potter was not an eventuality for which he had a prepared response or plan, as it hadn’t seemed like a possibility until it was happening. But most people quailed at Severus’s shouting, and Potter had taken it all and turned it right back around without it feeling like disrespect or dislike or – well, he'd had some anger behind some of his words, but it had felt fundamentally _fair_ , which Severus wasn't sure why he cared about, as 'fair' was only barely in the Slytherin mindset in the first place, but it seemed that he did. 

Probably youthful experience deflecting the murderous intentions of a powerful megalomaniac focused expressly upon him had been a useful desensitizing experience for the boy insofar as being shouted at, although Severus would have expected most people would have taken it as the sort of thing to avoid.

Not that _he_ was a megalomaniac, murderous or otherwise. In any case, all fires had been doused, and they’d eventually had a spirited discussion of the merits of the likely candidates to succeed Angus Settlestock in the Ministry, a topic about which Severus had fairly uncompromising opinions which were only partly the same as Potter’s, but which he had found himself modifying slightly based upon their argument. He recalled changing his mind based on someone else's points roughly seven times in the past twenty-five years, and three of those times the someone else had been Minerva McGonagall.

Still, Potter had to leave eventually because he had things to do ahead of the Falmouth meeting in the coming week, and against all expectation, it turned out that adult Harry Potter liked to be at least somewhat prepared. “Not like _Hermione_ -level prepared,” he said. “I haven’t gone completely round the twist.” He stood. “But I really should go.”

Severus stood as well, to escort him to the door. As they approached it, Potter put a hand on Severus’s shoulder, and _for fuck’s sake_ , Severus thought at his own body, _is gooseflesh at the touch of Harry Potter really quite necessary?_

He had just about decided to blame Zalman Wilting when Potter gave a little squeeze, and heat flooded through the joint. “That should speed it up a little,” Potter said.

“What?” Severus asked, stupid with the sensation and nearness.

“The shoulder. I mean, probably I should have, you know, asked before touching, but it’s my fault you got hurt.” He shrugged, but also blushed a little, which was …interesting.

“I shall try not to be infuriated by you healing me,” Severus said, adding a mental _again_ ; the two of them had spoken, briefly, after his extremely close call in the Shrieking Shack and Potter's timely intervention there, but at the time he’d been too ill to offer thanks or do anything much beyond try, groggily, to offer a few words of explanation regarding his poor youthful choices and lingering attachment to Lily. They hadn’t interacted in private again since.

“Well, _I_ shall try not to make it a habit anyway. But, to schedule: I'm meeting up with Ron tomorrow for a peek at some of the new Wheezes he's trying out for George. I’ll ring you Tuesday and we’ll see how it feels. If it’s good, we’ll talk about the ballbuster schedule.” And with that, Potter brushed past him and went out the door, Apparating from the stoop mid-stride.

Severus stared after him, thinking about his Tuesday to-do list.

Well, he could attach a trip to Knockturn Alley tomorrow after his regular marketing, and then he’d be home most of the day.

Because inexplicably, he really did want to be available when the telephone rang.

\--

He opted for the early class on Tuesday, a last-minute switch. It was only a level two, but he found he didn’t want to be unable to tolerate a second ride, should that be what Potter proposed.

Clearly he was losing his mind.

Still, he was home and showered, cooking up the proper breakfast he generally forewent before a very-early class, when the boy rang.

“Hello?” For fuck’s sake, he sounded pathetically eager for the conversation.

Perhaps he’d taken hitherto-unobserved spell damage at some point.

“Oi, Spinner. I wondered how you’d feel about a little live ride. I mean, not in the cave. Out of doors.”

Severus wondered why it had not occurred to him until just this moment that he no longer owned a broom. He Apparated or Flooed everywhere. “I. …I don’t have a proper broom,” he said. “But—”

“No worries. I have spares. _Good_ spares, if you’ll trust me?”

“I do.”

There was a long pause, and then Potter said, sounding a bit off, “You …do? Just like that? I thought I was going to have to list reasons. I have a list. Of reasons.”

Well, bugger, but there was no taking it back. “It turns out, yes. Just like that. Despite your nearly-inexcusable opinions regarding the import tax on magical creatures.”

Potter paused again, only a heartbeat, then said, “I’ll be there in three minutes,” and rang off.

Severus looked at the food in the pan, then looked at the two eggs he’d been about to fry. Maybe he’d fry four and they could eat before they flew.

He summoned two more to his hand and melted fat in the frying pan, then cracked all four and got out a second plate. Potter arrived on the sidewalk with a whoosh and he waved the door open for him, turning eggs onto the hash he’d already divided. “All right?” he asked, holding up the plates.

“Brilliant. I was going to say lunch after, but breakfast is also good.” Potter set down the brooms he had gathered together in one hand and took a plate, then walked past Severus to the table.

\--

Flying with Harry Potter was much like doing anything else with Harry Potter: illogical, unpredictable, incredibly engaging, the sort of thing that would lead a man to question his sanity.

It wasn’t like the class. Or rather, it _was_ , but everything that happened organically in the wild was choreographed in the studio--the _cave_ , Potter had said, but Severus had been in a number of caves in his life, and they had all been damp and smelly. And all right, that was also true of the studio, with perspiring witches and wizards flinging about their bodily oils and salts with every whip of the tail, but it wasn’t the same at all. But this was neither here nor there. Both kinds of flight were good, but Severus had never really _enjoyed_ flying in the elements before; the sun was hot and would burn his pale skin before he thought about it, the rain stung and sometimes froze, and the wind was something to struggle again. And yet, he enjoyed _this_ ride. He put it down to the company, and wondered what in the name of Merlin and Salazar Slytherin was _wrong_ with him.

Or rather, if he were honest, how it was that he should be afflicted with this ailment now, after decades alone and most of a lifetime expecting never to feel like this again.

As they landed, in a little field a few miles southwest of the home in which Severus had been raised (and, he supposed the home in which Lily Evans had, which was probably more relevant to Potter’s decision-making), he blurted, “I don’t suppose you’ve been trained in assessing whether a person has, for example, a fever?” He hadn’t meant to say that at _all_ , but as he was not even wearing one of the sodding encouragement shirts from the studio (not that he required any encouragement, and not that he’d really felt much pull in anything other than the virgin shirt that first time), he concluded he had no one to blame but himself. “Er. That is, since surely you’re meant to notice if someone becomes unwell, in your classes? As that would seem to be the point of the basic medical experience you’d mentioned, before.”

Potter squinted at him. “I have, and I am, but you don’t look like a man who feels unwell. You’re, you know, pink and Christ do not hex my bollocks off for this because I cannot believe I’m about to say it, but you’re sort of, like, almost sparkling with, um, …healthy enthusiasm?”

Severus did, for a moment, feel a very slight urge to hex. He told that urge to fuck off, and said, “I am not a person who turns pink. Also, I asked because I am deeply confused about the effects of flying with you.”

“Such as turning pink?”

“And, according to you, sparkly.”

“I mean, I think it means you’re having fun? I don’t want to make any horrid assumptions about, like, your life and activities or anything, but maybe that’s kind of a new experience for you.”

Severus started to protest, but actually it was distressingly true. He’d had fun, in his life, but rarely in any sort of extended way, and rarely in company. Except in Swoop!™ classes, which had been nearly uniformly fun even once he'd known they were the brainchild of Harry Potter.

He thought about that for a moment, then changed the subject. “Are you planning for us to fly all afternoon, or was there some purpose or destination?”

Potter grinned. “Purpose is having fun, so I think we’ve got that handled. Destination…” He trailed off, looking a little uncertain. “I was going to suggest destination supper?”

“We had breakfast together.”

“Yes, that’s my hesitation.”

“Eating with me twice in one day would be tiresome?”

“Uh, no. Eating with you twice in one day might lead to me doing something epically stupid.”

“Which would be new, how?”

“Fuck you. Which would be new because lately I’m mostly an adult and my life is fairly organized, and here I am considering dis-organizing it and maybe dying in the process.”

Now Severus found himself squinting. “Potter, you’ve reverted to nonsense. Also, disorganized and nearly dying can't be new ground for you.”

“Not actually. With the nonsense, obviously; the other thing we're just going to take as read because I already said fuck you in the last thirty seconds. I just… look, you and I have unresolved, um, _things_ that are, I don’t know, old and deep, although I think we’ve maybe come to some commonality and also when we spoke the last time, when I came for tea, I, like, enjoyed your company? And I want to enjoy it more.”

“In degree or duration?”

“What?”

“This doesn’t seem like a particularly complicated question. Is it that you want to enjoy it for longer periods of time, or in a more comprehensive manner?”

“Uh. Both? See, here’s the part where I take my life in my hands: I kind of a lot want to take you to dinner and then take you home. My home. For things that usually might happen after dinner. _Then_ breakfast.”

Severus blinked at him, and blinked again, and lifted off the ground, flying high into the air with no particular direction planned.

“So is that a no?” Potter pulled up beside him, because of course he could follow any path Severus might take on a broom, but his voice was amplified in a way Severus didn’t immediately understand. Then, he did: the boy was speaking, physically, but also speaking into his head using the Legilimency Severus had worked so hard to teach him, twenty years ago now. “Or, and I like this answer better, not that you aren’t allowed to pick the first one, is it that I’m to chase you?”

“No. Not. Neither.” Severus grimaced at his stammered answer, then spun in the air and hovered, next to but facing Potter. They were close enough to touch, a situation he’d only ever encountered on a broom in a combat situation, and for a moment his whole body seized in a near panic that he immediately and brutally quashed. He took a breath, then relaxed his body and said, “Neither, but I find myself deeply confused by the path that has led to this moment. Please enlighten me.”

Potter raised his eyebrows. “S…edgwick—”

“Don’t. Clearly my story has holes; it’s not just you that’s realized.”

“Fine, but I can _call_ you Sedgwick; the name I knew you under before…” He shrugged. “There’s a lot, as Hermione often says, to unpack.”

“You’ve called me Snape before.”

“I have, but I don’t actually want to address you so impersonally, for the same reason it’d be okay with me if you stopped calling me _Potter_.”

“Severus, then. Shall I refer to you as …what was the name you gave, when you were captured? You used your uncle’s name, I believe. Shall I call you that?”

Potter (Harry, if they were to be fair) wrinkled his nose. “I’d rather you definitely did not. Fine. Severus, yes. What I was going to say was that all I can tell you is my story. I don’t know the path that’s led to you not disassembling me to small parts for impertinence.” His broom raised up a little higher and Severus nudged his own up, following Harry on a slow upward trajectory while they talked.

“You survived Voldemort. I don’t think I’ve the capacity to—”

“That's entirely nonsense, but you’re deflecting.”

“I’m not. I have no idea. Three months ago I thought I was probably dying, maybe slowly, and then I went to a young healer with bright green hair—”

“He’s a good bloke, Wilting. As far as I’ve dealt with him, anyway; I know him from referrals and also because he sometimes buys a round for the house at The Bent Spout. Which is where I met him in the first place, leading to the referrals.”

The Bent Spout was in Wizarding Chelsea, and was a bit more brightly-lit than Severus preferred for drinking establishments, but there was a good chance that was because it was what passed for a gay bar and at least half the lighting was about making things sparkle and glitter in a variety of ways, and he wondered for a moment whether it was the only source of Wilting's contacts. Not that it mattered. He set it aside. “Yes, and he seems to have given me sensible advice even when I was quite cross and despite that I may have intimated I was considering opportunities to poison his tea. However, what I was going to say was, and then I found myself back in better health, and then there you were.”

“There I was. And so, now you feel better, you don’t object to being propositioned?”

“In general? Yes, I object.”

“And so you see my confusion. But all right, I’ll start. I found, once I stopped being an idiot teen-ager, that having spent my entire adolescence with an externally-imposed _greater purpose_ and then no longer having it was kind of awful. Kind of a lot awful. No direction, and if you follow the papers you probably read about how I invested in George’s shop, worked there intermittently, was propositioned effectively morning, noon, and night every day and by every sort of person one might encounter in the world, and sometimes accepted a broad swath of the options, to the delight of the tabloids because they are vultures who should feel very bad about themselves. So that went on for a long while, longer than it would if I had it to do again, and was quite educational, but I eventually concluded it’s the sort of thing one can only make a life out of if one is exactly as insipid and vapid as you may have once suggested every student at school was.”

“To be quite fair, I was not wrong about at least half of them.”

Harry chuckled. “I’ll give you that. But so, I found that I actually wanted a relationship, or at least, a sex partner, with whom I might have arguments and fruitful conversations and in general something other than fucking a celebrity, so.”

“You concluded, after too many people agreeably sucked your cock, that you wanted more disagreement in your life? And this is the path that led you to me?” Severus frowned. “I suppose there’s a certain kind of sense to that, but I suspect for me, mutual nonloathing is perhaps a prerequisite.”

“I don’t loathe you, and you don’t loathe me—any more, anyhow—and also, no, I don’t want disagreement, _per se_ ; I just want to not be the only person in the room with an opinion. I could fuck a blow-up doll if I wanted no opinions. Anyway, so then I fucked around Europe for a few years, not literally, just, I went to famous and less-famous places and listened to tour guides and talked to locals and visited libraries. But then I came home when Hermione and Ron broke up because each of them needed to cry at me, and it felt like time to come home. So that takes us to early 2007. You?”

“So you took a vow of chastity upon arrival on the continent?”

“No, Actually, I moved in with a creatures-keeper east of Skopje for several months, and I mean, I thought for a time I might stay there? Ljubco wasn't ready to leave the area, though, when I came home, and also would probably die of freezing up here because summers in Macedonia are fucking brutal, but anyway, I found I wasn't so attached that the separation was all that terrible, you know? And neither was he. We still meet up when I'm in the area. Why?

“I was merely curious.” Severus said. “Since you bothered to specify whether you were being literal. Also, I spent two years recovering from a rather uncomfortable set of wounds accumulated in defying Voldemort, and then a year beyond that determining that it was not going to be possible to cobble together any kind of life under my own name without simply hiring my apothecarial and spycraft services out to additional maniacs, villains, and sociopaths, groups from whom I had hoped to largely dissociate. None of the aforementioned ever propositioned me in any way that seemed like it might be a lark.” 

“So you took a vow of chastity?”

“I …did not. One of the only avenues through which I _was_ able to forge a living as myself involved offering my body for the use of others.”

Harry frowned, then raised his eyebrows high. “Prostitution brought you a higher quality clientele than making Wolfbane? I’d have thought there would be booming demand.”

“There is, but not from Severus Snape. Keep in mind I’d been out of commission for two years and so most of those affected had found their own solutions. And, I was instrumental in allowing Greyback into the damned castle in the first place. So, yes and no, as to quality of clientele. It came to pass that many of the people who sought to hire me wished principally to punish me for former associations and using my body to their gratification and my …not gratification… was a method they hoped would humiliate me as well as hurt me. So eventually I chose another path.”

“Hope to humiliate…” Harry paused, then squinted. “I think you would hex me painfully for leaping to your defense fifteen years after the fact, and you seem to have found your way, but I’m horrified, just, you know, FYI.”

“At which?” 

“Which what?”

“The prostitution or the client behavior?”

“What? No, people get to use their bodies to make a living.” Harry gestured at himself. “I do. I found spin classes, figured I could put it on a broom, and invented a way to jump around for money, but the baseline of that is that I’m selling my physicality to make my living.”

“Many people would feel differently. And would not accept your premise that these careers hold any commonalities.”

“Yeah, well, fuck’em. Some people think I’m special, and I’m using that to declare those people fucking wrong. Anyway. So then you picked up a new identity – how’d that work, with Mungo’s and all? I assume you’re selling to them.”

“Why?”

“Why which?”

“Why do you assume that?”

“Well, you did say you were not unable to afford the fee for classes, and, like, I looked and you didn't set off the reduced-fee charms so you must be doing all right for yourself. And then, the other choices are that you’ve taken up another different line of work, which would seem like it would be even more difficult in terms of developing a reputation from scratch, or that you’re doing the kind of work that I got the sense you were fully done with, so.”

Severus had been letting the air currents drift them higher still, casting the occasional silent charm to keep them warm as they rose into the chill. He cast another one now. “I did cut my hair and stopped trying to cover the scarring; taken together even people who had known me might not, and it's not as though I ever let my face be particularly famous. But perhaps it's not that I sell to the hospital; perhaps I’ve merely taken up work among Muggles. As a tailor or some such; I doubt one needs a particular reputation in order to hem trousers, and anyway, Muggles have a very different perspective on what aspects of reputation matter than do most of my remaining cohort.”

“Your remaining cohort?” Harry looked around and then Severus felt another rush of warmth; he’d apparently cast a warming charm himself. “Who do you consider that to be?”

“Not that I spend time with any of them, but I suppose I mean the remainder of both sets of my wartime colleagues.”

“All right, but I have very little doubt that the Weasleys have an enormously different set of definitions regarding that than the Malfoys, and that’s different yet from Filius or Poppy.”

“The Malfoys were never my colleagues. Not really.” Severus felt himself overreacting to the comment, lifting higher and away, but he didn’t want to let go of his irritation, so he didn’t.

“Obviously. Still, I think that’s the set that has particularly firm expectations regarding what is socially acceptable, don’t you?”

Severus had to agree that was broadly true. Although Molly Weasley could hold a grudge until it was old enough for its own shot of Firewhisky, so it wasn’t universal. He changed the subject. “The Spout, then?”

“What?”

“You frequent the Bent Spout. Where men find one another for gratification? Even though you claim not to want such a thing?”

“I do. Is this a problem?”

Severus had been curious what the response would be if he suggested this was somehow strange or unsavory, but there was nothing. Only a level certainty. He shrugged, a languid move that was more casual than he suddenly felt. “Only if they’ve told you to bugger off and you persist, I suppose.”

“They have not.” Harry leaned forward a bit. “I think they’re hoping to cash in on my fame. It’d work better if I didn’t keep up a fairly comprehensive glamour. Not that they see it; I’m not trying to fool the proprietor of anyplace. Just keeping the rabble from horning in, is all.”

“You go to the trouble of putting up a disguise, but you let some groups through it?”

“It’s worked pretty well. I go where I want, and the papers can’t find me. I mean, they _could_ , if they were paying attention; it seems unlikely to that there’s a whole other nonexistent person living in my flat and they definitely see him come and go, but so far either they’re unimaginative, or, and this is actually my theory, the kid who’s most commonly left watching my front steps has decided he’s on my side.”

Severus raised his eyebrows. “You live a very strange life.”

“Not new, my dude.”

“I am not ‘your dude,’ and in fact am not sure anyone should answer to that title.”

Harry laughed brightly, then looked at Severus intently. “All right, but we could work on that.”

Severus wasn’t sure whether the shudder that went through his entire body was a matter of the ice particles in the air as they’d kept drifting up, or the rush of heat that followed that gaze. He swallowed. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting that we take this back to the ground before we both freeze our balls off, and then I think we already covered the staying for breakfast concept, which is what led to us being up here doing the freezing in the first place. But all right, I suppose the slight difference between that and this is that I’m suggesting we, like, _date_. Like, in the way people do when they mean to take up with one another consistently. And I’m hoping that means blowjobs.”

Severus considered the proposition. “You think we ought to date.”

“Yes, but with some non-insignificant emphasis on the sex part. Because I do want that, with you, although even without that, I also do want to keep coming 'round for tea and shouting. Just in case you were thinking I only wanted to use a willing body for my own gratification.” Harry leaned into Severus's space suddenly, and honestly he rather was taking his life into his hands because a hex at this altitude would probably end badly all round, and pulled them together, chest to chest. "If you're going to inflict mayhem upon me, maybe tell me before I kiss you?"

Severus said nothing, and Harry brought them closer. His glasses were fogged up with the moisture in the freezing air, but it didn't matter; a moment later they were kissing, brooms synced up and staying adjacent as though in formation. Severus couldn't remember the last time he'd been kissed, but it didn't matter because he was staying right here until someone gave him a reason to move.

Finally, Harry pulled away. "So I mean, emphasis, but that's not the whole thing, obviously. Like I said, if all I wanted was someone to touch my dick, I could probably arrange that; I just don't want to. I want to date. You."

“Well.” Severus avoided thinking about his lifetime record of zero actual _dates_ involving social interaction and events besides just a fuck in a loo somewhere, and instead considered whether he wanted to date Harry Potter. Which he didn't know how to do, and might be bad at, and would have to learn about, from Harry himself. It was unexplainable, but he was finding that he did. No, who was he kidding; this was where they'd been heading since he'd seen him in the cave. He definitely wanted whatever Harry was offering, even if it did turn out to be a fling (but he hoped it would not). “Well,” he started again, “this seems a bit sudden, but I suppose the worst case will be that we wind up cursing one another.”

“Also not new, and probably still worth it. And I guess it's a little sudden, but then, we've known each other for a long while, just with some interruptions, and if there's anything my history of near-death experiences no one should have taught me, it's not to wait when an opportunity presents. So. To suddenness?” Harry tossed one more grin (and when the fuck had Harry Potter Grinning become this devastating to Severus’s equilibrium, anyway?) and whirled in the frozen air to start a deep curving dive to the earth.

Well, then. Severus gave chase.

\--

"Harry."

"Hmm?" Harry squinted glassesless at Severus and felt about on the nightstand where maybe he'd tossed them before making an excellent effort at sucking Severus's brain out through his cock.

"You've an owl at the window. It's ...insistent, and also attempted to murder me when I opened the sash the smallest crack." Severus had pulled back on his underpants and shirt to sleep in, but Harry was bare to the skin and flushed warm and pink from being bundled up.

Harry squinched up his nose. "Honestly? Bugger." He untangled from the mess of blankets on his bed and went to the window. "Sorry." The owl did not attempt to murder _him_ , merely holding out its leg for him to take a message. "Any idea where my glasses are?"

Severus started to speak, but then Harry said, "Eh, whatever, can you just read this for me?" He fished a treat out of a small box nearby for the owl, who was evidently called Oswald, and told it to wait.

"You're a wizard, Harry. I don't know if you've ever learnt a summoning spell? Or, for that matter a spell to enlarge the text, or--"

Harry grinned. "What fun is that? My way, I get to listen to you talk."

"I see." Severus unrolled the message. "It's from Emma. It seems Jasper's neck-sprain is more extensive than previously believed and he has been unable to locate a substitute. She apologizes for not being able to cover the class herself, but says this is her week with William, whatever that means."

"I thought as much. Not very many people find themselves able to contact me here, and if it had been Hermione she'd have just firecalled. Will is Emma's son; his father is a Muggle and didn't take the discovery of magic particularly well. He tried to win sole custody; I may have had to make some creative use of coercion charms to get her every third week and alternating holidays."

Severus pursed his lips. "Do you suppose he'll need further correction, if the boy is a wizard?" 

"He might, but he also won't be in the situation again. I may also have made creative use of a deflating charm so he can't, you know, make any more babies with witches, although I guess he could still sire a child like Hermione. Well, no, I mean, no one is quite like Hermione, but you take my point."

"Growing up with an angry wizard-hating father is somewhat less than ideal. Someone is looking out for the boy?"

Harry gave him a look. "Growing up with angry wizard-hating relations who were also angry at one's parents and who kept one in a literal closet is also somewhat less than ideal, so yes. Anyway. So I need to go cover. Which sucks, because I was sort of hoping to keep you in bed all day. I can think of fifteen or twenty things we haven't got round to yet."

"So you have not been physically gratified by my body enough for one day? Well, we'll have something to look forward to for next time, I suppose. For a value of next time which is when you return from teaching in place of the cervically-challenged Jasper, if you were planning a day in bed in the first place."

"You'll stay? His neck is fine, by the way. Jasper. His problem is actually a broken dick, which he refuses to take to a mediwizard out of embarrassment because I guess suffering is better? But so I don't really have a choice. Except for the small problem that I'd really rather stay here and engage in a thorough examination of your arse."

"Yes, I believe after you got me off twice without ever bothering to examine, I indicated I should like that as well, but first: a broken penis?"

"I only know because Dietrich isn't as shy. Also he likes trying to shock me with their athleticism in bed. I remain unshocked, but I guess they got up to something acrobatic, and there was a mid-air mishap involving broomsticks and, you know, _broomsticks_." Harry made a rude gesture in case Severus didn't take his point, and Severus rolled his eyes. "And that's how Jasper broke his dick. Seriously he needs to take it in, because fucksakes how's he going to teach if he can't sit?"

"Dietrich the instructor? The one whose music is the lyrical equivalent to the Howler?"

Harry finally located his glasses under Severus's pillow and shoved them victoriously onto his nose. "Yes, why?"

"Because Jasper uses primarily something he referred to as K-Pop?"

"Sure, but all that means is their kids have a variety of musical influences."

Severus stared. "They have children?"

"Twins. They're five, I think. Diet's sister was apparently willing to carry them? I don't know much more though – but do you really want to spend the half hour I have before I need to go discussing the family structures and situations of any more of my staff? When I could be semi-thoroughly investigating your arse? I mean, unless you want to cover his class – it's a level one, so I could just stay here and think dirty thoughts until you came back..."

"In order, I do not, I remain interested in your arse-examining plans, and I am not at all qualified to lead a class."

Harry shrugged. "I bet I could make it worth your while."

"I bet I would frighten away your clientele, torpedo your business, and probably damage myself trying to maintain my seat whilst aware you were, as you say, lying about thinking dirty thoughts."

"Fine, fine. Answer the message that I'll be in in half an hour, then get back in here. Oi, Oswald, Severus is allowed. Be nice."

Severus scribbled on the back of the original message and approached the owl with some concern, but it just blinked at him and stuck out its leg, managing to convey an air of exasperated boredom whilst also appearing to resent being nice and to remain unconvinced Severus was an acceptable writer of messages. He made a mental note to find the breeder and obtain Oswald's twin; he was perfect. "Won't she find it odd, me answering for you?"

"She does most of the general oversight of a business owned and operated by Harry Potter, reported hero and celebrity who died twice before he ever even left school. It would probably take a herd of humping kangaroos doing the backstroke as a fund-raiser for Anglican diamond merchants before she'd feel things had gone seriously astray. Now get back here. I have twenty-eight arse-examining minutes, and I mean to use them wisely by fucking you stupid."

Severus wasn't about to argue, although honestly he was a bit sore from the long flight. He tied the message to Oswald and paused. "I assume your Floo is trapped? I want to fetch something from my flat."

Harry shook his head. "No. I mean, yes, but you can get in."

"Since when?"

"Since always, duh. Anyone who was with the Order can get through if I'm home and haven't explicitly locked up. Which probably I should have in _case_ of Hermione calling or Ron showing up to listen to the match. Why?"

"Your security situation is abominable."

"And yet, I survived Voldemort _and_ the fucking press. But what can you possibly need to fetch? Twenty-seven minutes!"

Severus nodded, held up a finger, and tossed powder into the bedroom grate, then spoke his address and bent down to reach through. Thirty seconds later his salve had slapped into his palm and he'd brought it back across the distance and into Harry's flat. "Lube," he said.

"I... do have some of that," Harry said. "It's been a moment since I used it _with_ anyone, but it's the sort of thing one keeps on hand. So to speak, actually."

"Not like this, you don't."

Harry raised an eyebrow and examined the plain jar more closely. "You make this yourself?"

"Yes, although its initial purpose was to heal the crotch bruises left by your sodding brooms. It was only afterward that I realized that when applied topically to that area it would also work as a lubricant." He considered saying something more, then simply offered up the jar. "Give it a go."

Harry took the jar and scooped some up on his fingers, rubbing them to test the viscosity. He looked at Severus. "I assume you're not going to give me anything that would make me struggle to teach in..." He looked at the clock over the fireplace. "Twenty-six minutes?"

"Obviously not. I feel that would place a great damper upon this budding relationship, and then with whom would I complain about Settlestock? Also, if you can't get it done in twenty-six minutes I'm going to start doubting your tales of experience with celebrity-fuckers."

"Oh, I definitely can, but I'm hoping for your help." Harry stuck his fingers in the jar again, then handed it back and coated his half-hard cock. And gasped as the suddenly-fierce arousal struck. "Holy shit, what did you _do_?"

"It's also turned out to be something of an aphrodisiac."

"You think? Christ." Harry squirmed on the bed. "No hurry or anything, but if you're not riding me in like thirty seconds I might die and then you'd have to explain to Molly why you killed me and I mean, that can't be a life goal you have."

It was definitely not. Severus stripped off his clothes as quickly as he could and climbed back onto the bed, straddling Harry and holding the jar in one hand. "So, you're hoping I'll let you fuck me, then?"

"Jesus shit, I thought we were on the same page but if that's not happening, can you get me, I don't know, an ice pack? Because I definitely cannot teach like this."

Severus snorted, then actually laughed. "We can't have that, obviously. But what was that about surviving Voldemort and the fucking press? You're to be brought low by one little--"

"Who're you calling little?" Harry asked. He took another scoop out of the jar and arched a brow. "Also, since you appear to be getting on with it approximately on the nevereth of next month, may I?"

Severus made space between them and set down the jar because he was nearly sure that Harry's fingers inside him would have made him drop it even without the aphrodisiac properties. It was a good call; despite that he'd come twice in the past twn or so hours already, he was ready to do it again in seconds.

He whined, gritted his teeth, and held out as long as he could while Harry fingered him, and then, with a breath of relief, lined up and sank down onto Harry's cock.

To his surprise, and obviously to Harry's, the urgency mitigated as soon as they were joined, mutating into a burn that wanted pressure and movement, but not intensity. Their pace slowed. "Huh," Severus said.

Harry dug his fingers into the flesh of his arsecheeks and held them tightly together, rocking slightly and slowly. "What huh?"

"I didn't expect it to slow us down."

"Neither did I, but I don't hate it." He squeezed again. "But for reference: twenty minutes."

"You could just cancel the class," Severus said, gripping Harry's hips with his thighs and dropping down to frame his face with his elbows on the pillow.

"Yeah, I might." 

Severus shook his head. "Not really."

"Probably not. But I am definitely going to start looking for a couple more subs, because I want not to get pulled out of your bed, you know, ever again? Tomorrow, after I spend today ravishing you."

"All right." Severus rocked forward and back again, then dropped his head for a heated kiss.

After a minute the salve heated again, spurring him to move faster exactly when that was what he wanted to do anyway, and Harry groaned under him. "What the fuck kind of magic did you invent with that stuff?"

Severus shook his head. "While you look for new subs, I'll be going over my notes."

"Good plan. Eighteen minutes including I need to get cleaned up." Harry rolled them over and went to work. "And I don't have a Time Turner, so we need to move."

"I hardly mean to stop now."

–

"Harry? Have you heard anything--"

Severus heard the voice and frowned, but he was well more than halfway asleep, drowsing, and he tumbled to where he was and who was speaking just a second too late to avoid what happened next. The Floo flared, then damped, then whooshed again to life, and Molly stood in the bedroom glaring at him. 

"Ah. Harry went to teach a class?" he asked the room at large. "Wait, you know about his... employment? Business? Ac...tivity?" Merlin. Apparently the sex had rendered him entirely incapable of coherent speech. 

Which was fair. His thighs had quivered for _minutes_ and even yet, _even in the presence of Molly Weasley_ he still felt the languor of an incredible orgasm.

She tilted her head at him, and he realized not only was he asleep in Harry's bed, he was also wearing not so much as a stitch, and the blankets had been left entirely in disarray when Harry had hurried off to the shower.

"And... I stayed... here?"

"I see that."

Severus sighed and squirmed a blanket onto him, then sat up. "Was there something you wanted?"

"I'd heard a rumor that you'd been seen in Battersea, near Harry's place of business, employment, and activity." Fuck. She was teasing him. And he was too sex-stupid to even snarl. "I was coming to see if he'd seen you. Since no one has heard from you in five years, you see, and I like to know if it's time to stop sending Christmas greetings."

"You've never sent me a Christmas greeting."

"In principle, although I'd have done, if you'd ever been in the good bits between bouts of apparent evil when Christmas rolled about. And now, here you are."

"Here I am. Harry should be back in perhaps thirty minutes."

"And you'll still be here?"

"I should expect so." He frowned. "Is this some manner of interrogation?"

She shook her head. "No, Severus. Only I'm surprised." She paused. "How long has his been going on?"

"Not since he was dating your daughter, if that's your point."

"It isn't. But, if Ron knew, or for that matter probably if Hermione did, I'd have heard. Mothers worry."

"Mine never did. But if you insist it is your business, this is a recent development and one I'm not prepared to discuss."

"I see."

Severus didn't know what else to say, but it didn't matter; Molly wasn't done. "I don't know whether to lecture you or hug you."

"Please do not hug me."

She laughed. "Lecture it shall be, then."

"I'm fifty-six years old, Molly. I hardly require lecturing. I went to his class, we discussed my presence there, things progressed, here we are. I'm sure he'll tell you whichever part he feels is the sort of thing he wants to discuss. Later. Not now. While I am sitting here bare-arsed for your lecture anyway." He wasn't sure why she wasn't already mid-hex upon his person; she surely had the skills and he was, still, naked and surprised.

She nodded. "Tell him to come round, then, for Sunday supper. You, too, if you're..." She gestured, something that might have encompassed anything, and turned to go. As she reached the Floo, she turned back. "Oh, and Severus?"

"Yes?"

"It's a bit difficult to tell, amid the mussed hair and hickeys, but you look well. It's good to see you looking well."

She was gone before he managed to formulate a response, and he swore. When had she started treating him like one of her own? Because that was what that had felt like, and it was confusing. Also, whatever else happened, this was going to be a matter of public interest soon enough. He pulled on his shirt and underpants after a brief search for the latter, then located his trousers and robe. The Floo was tempting, because he had no real idea whether Harry would be upset about the spread of information, but in the end he just went into the kitchen and started rummaging for materials to fry up. Harry would be hungry regardless, and he wasn't fucking leaving just because of gossip. He never had before, after all. He had said he meant to stay, and he did. Also, maybe Harry could be softened up a bit with some nice beans and veg so he wouldn't banish Severus directly when he confessed how absurd he'd just been.

\-- 

“I wasn’t actually joking, about whether you could cover the class,” Harry said, apropos of nothing an hour after supper. They were stretched out on the couch, sitting against either end and sharing a blanket across their tangled legs in the middle. It was the sort of very-domestic pose Severus would have bet everything he owned, three or four weeks ago, that he’d never be associated with, but somehow it was comfortable. He was working through his supply list (and quietly considering whether to add that salve to his product line, because if Harry’s response was typical it would sell like mad, and the idea of selling a sex aid that the Weasleys hadn’t developed first appealed to him). Harry was working on payroll nonsense at the other end; Severus had looked at it and felt glad he was only self-employed and didn’t need to fool about with the rules and forms.

“Oh, but you were. No one would find me inspiring, and also I’ve no idea how to select music to manage pace and the like.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “The second one no one knows how to do at first, and I help them. I mean, I knew fuck all about it at first too, but once I started working out how to translate the spin concept into the wizarding world, I figured it out. Percy’s wife Audrey was a great help.”

“This doesn’t resolve the basic problem.”

“You inspired a generation of adolescents to not burn down the castle. I think you might have some skills.”

“By fear and, if we’re perfectly honest, abuse.”

Harry looked at him seriously. “Okay, so that’s true, but I think you might do differently now, don’t you?”

“This conversation is absurd. I am not the person who will stand in the middle, all eyes on me, and encourage and direct.”

Harry shrugged. “Always your call, but I looked at the records, and you?” He pointed a finger at Severus. “You are an addict, for real. You’ve averaged five or six classes a week from the very start. Might as well take the mike and run the show. I think your aesthetic would be like if Dieter and Pamela’s classes had a baby.”

Severus hadn’t managed to make Pamela’s class, but he’d heard she ran it largely in the dark, minimal lyrics, primarily the higher-pitched strings and woodwinds. “I have no idea what that would sound like. Angry flutes?”

“Sure. But I mean, if you wanted to do pink floral and cats, first I’d check you weren’t Dolores Umbridge playing a very long and sick game, but otherwise it’d be up to you. Offer stands.” He went back to his paperwork, and Severus went back to examining his list. It was the strangest job offer he’d ever heard of.

\--

“I’m not sure why you call that ride the ballbuster,” Severus said, limping up the steps to his door. “Neither of mine actually lost structural integrity, and I’ve found neither of yours seems particularly distressed.” He dropped his shoes and cloak in the foyer and considered flopping down on the sofa, but actually, sitting down sounded deeply terrible.

“What do _you_ think I should call it?”

“Blister your taint and hope to die?”

Harry laughed and went ahead of him to the bath. “Oi, you mind if I make some changes in here?”

“What kind of changes?” Severus pulled his sodden shirt over his head and considered whether it would be best to just go to bed damp. Except, he’d probably never survive getting up in the morning.

“Nothing major. Just fixing your tub.”

Severus didn’t have a tub. “Potter, are you—” Sparks flew in the bath and he hurried to limp that way.

“Fine, your shower, which lacks a tub, but your neighbor moved out two weeks ago and will not miss the space, and I’ll put it all back. Also it’s nearly two in the morning and if there are Muggles about to see anything from the outside of the building, they won’t believe their eyes anyway.” He’d shoved the wall out and into what was certainly the neighboring home and conjured an enormous tub which was filling fast with steaming, fragrant water.

Severus sighed. “If I have trouble with the housing authorities, I am absolutely requiring you to come solve it.” But the water did look and smell fantastic, and except for how taking off the rest of his sweaty gear was going to involve bending, he couldn’t wait to get it in.

This, he decided, was what magic was for. He stripped to the skin and shuffled over, yelping when Harry _leviosa_ ’ed him over the lip and then tore off his own gear and slid in behind him. “See? Also, you’re definitely moving in with me tomorrow so we don’t have to do this ever again. I mean, if you want to.”

Severus was too busy not making obscene moaning sounds to respond usefully, much less to develop any kind of response to the proposed relationships upgrade. Harry had clearly dumped some of his salve, which was turning out to have wider range than he’d hoped, into the water, and so even as the heat relaxed away some of the soreness, his body was responding to the other aspects. And Harry, who was no help at all, was wrapped around him, kneading the muscles of his shoulders, his belly, his arse.

“You think you’re fucking me in this tub, don’t you?”

“Not if you don’t want to, but I’m down,” Harry said.

“Down?”

“Fully prepared to carry out such a plan.” Harry slithered around from behind him—this tub was truly ridiculous—and lifted an eyebrow at him. 

Severus scowled. “Yes, but blisters and death.”

“We’ll just make accommodations, then.” Harry took off his glasses and dropped them on the floor outside the tub, then smirked and ducked under the water.

Severus closed his eyes and let him. He was nearly ashamed to find that he didn’t realize for several seconds of glorious nuzzling and sucking on his (intact) balls and shaft that Harry was _underwater_ , but when he opened his eyes and looked, he found there was nothing to worry about. Although he hadn’t realized a Bubble-Head Charm could be used exactly like _this_. 

It wasn’t even impeding the work of the salve. He did groan obscenely this time, and pressed his cockhead up into Harry’s throat. Harry looked up at him, winked, and went to work.

Merlin. He expected, based on past experience, to come quickly, but after nowhere near long enough, Harry popped up out of the water and called his wand into his hand. Severus started to ask why, but then a thin strap or ribbon of some kind was wrapping gently around his cock and tightening, and Harry was straddling him. “See? Accommodations,” he said. “But I want to take my time, so I can’t have you coming too fast.”

Severus rather thought that was now a foregone conclusion. His eyes rolled back as Harry, Harry and his perfect, and perfectly-lubed, arse, slid onto him inch by inch. “I expect I won’t last long anyway,” he said.

Harry grinned and flexed his fist, tightening the ring around Severus’s cock. 

Severus swore, arched, and learned that actually, yes, Harry could take his time, and there was a good chance he was actually going to die by the time he let him come. “You kill me, Potter, I’m haunting you.”

“Not a chance,” Harry said. “Remember, I have medical certifications, and also and probably more relevantly, I have a _lot_ more plans for your arse.”

\--

“You’re late,” Severus said. He’d let the fire go low, so only dim red embers lit the room; he was himself probably all but invisible in the high-backed chair in front of it.

Harry lit the lantern near the door and blinked at him. “I. Yes? I hadn’t actually expected you to wait up, or I’d have let you know.”

“I became concerned, and then you weren’t at the studio, so I wasn’t sure what to think. It’s nearly half five in the morning, and you smell like a distillery.” 

Harry stared. “You went to the studio? Shit. Okay, so yes, I do smell like a distillery, because I went for a drink. Wait. Are you…” He frowned. “I feel like you think I should have realized you’d be upset.”

“I am not upset. I merely would have wished to learn ahead of time if I were being replaced so I’d have time to arrange a living situation.”

“Rep—no.”

“You needn’t lie to me. You stayed out all night going for a drink you hadn’t mentioned, and as I said, you weren’t at the studio. So I used a location charm.”

“You _followed_ me? Also, wow, nice work. I’m usually pretty good at noticing those, and also I generally repel them.” Harry shook his head. “Okay, so you found me? But then—”

“But then,” Severus said, pleased with the extent to which his voice wasn’t shaking even as he was annoyed by the converse extent to which he found this _mattered_ to him, “I saw you having a drink with a man who clearly knows you very well. Who is welcome in your space. With whom you laugh and push at his shoulder and lean in to hear him. Who is muscular and has a ridiculous arse and is apparently the life of the party at the Spout.”

Harry pulled his wand out of his jacket and set it carefully on the side table, then took a breath to dispel crackling energy in his hair and around his shoulders. He held it in, then blew out. “And so, you’re jealous, because you think this means I’m stepping out. So, first, we haven’t actually made any specific claims on one another—”

“I’m aware; however, I won’t share.”

“Good. Neither will I, so I guess this is us making claims.”

“And yet—”

“And yet, I do in fact have friends. Had you come in, I’d have introduced you.”

“To your ... _friend_.”

“Yeah. Actually, I’ve told you about him before. He was in town for a creatures thing. He wanted to meet up, I said I had class to teach, couldn’t til after. That was Ljubco, which is why he’s built about like Charlie; he spends half his time chasing alarming beasts in difficult places.”

“Ljubco. Your Macedonian boyfriend.”

“Eh. Lover, I suppose. We very much did not make specific claims, and as you may recall, I left, and then subsequently I moved in with you. Well, or you moved in with me but I mean.”

“And he came here, and went out for drinks with you at one in the morning, because he doesn’t want back in your pants?”

Harry sighed. “Are you just not going to trust me?”

“It’s not my strong suit, no.”

Harry shrugged. “Fine. So you can trust me or I can show you. Or you can look. I’d rather you trusted me. We aren’t, and haven’t been, sleeping together. I see him about once a year, all in all. He’s a hugger and a leaner-in, and so that’s what you saw. But he has a boyfriend named …shit. I think it was Cosmar? Something like that. They’re adopting a kid in the spring.”

“And you and he are doing nothing untoward?”

“Untoward? Is this what we’re calling it?” Harry stepped forward at last and held out a hand. “You think I’m fucking around behind your back, and the word you have is untoward?”

Severus stood, scowling. “You were late.”

Harry reached and grabbed Severus’s wrist and stepped into his space. “I’d rather you trusted, but I’d more rather you didn’t feel worried. _Legilimens_.”

Severus felt ridiculous, but of course, the link Harry had just opened went both ways, and Harry’s grip tightened. 

“You get to feel what you feel, love. Just take what you need, and we can go to bed.” 

Severus didn’t look. “You don’t want back with him?”

“Uh, no, since I am happy with the relationship I have?” Harry stepped in a little closer. “But I could have sent a message.”

“You could.” Severus felt all the tension he’d been holding for two hours start to drop away, and with it the hold he had on all the trembling he’d been so pleased with himself for not doing. Damn it.

“And I should. Next time, I will. I just didn’t think you’d want to meet for drinks in the middle of the night and also I suck at relationships.”

“Slightly less than I do, apparently,” 

Harry leaned the rest of the way in and kissed Severus’s mouth. “Oh, hullo,” he muttered, without moving back. “Thing we have not tried before: Legilimency sex.”

Severus couldn’t find he disagreed; the spark Harry felt at kissing him only echoed the one he felt, but the combination was heady. He surged forward to kiss him again, suddenly eager, and was startled to find himself laughing as Harry steered them toward the bedroom and started pulled clothing off both of them as they went. 

Every move echoed like the kiss: his own skin baring, Harry’s skin baring. His own hands on the bedspread, Harry’s hands on his hips. Harry wasn’t drunk, just warm, but the effect of the dual sensations was intoxicating. He could feel Harry’s broom callouses catching on the fine hairs of his arse, and he could feel the fine hairs of his arse catching and dragging against the callouses on Harry’s hardened palms and fingers, and then when Harry waved a cleaning charm and bit one cheek he felt the teeth and the flesh, and honestly why had they never done this before? He wasn’t sure if the thought belonged to him or to Harry, but he couldn’t disagree with it, so he decided not to care.

Finally, as Harry sank into him, draping forward over his back, he gasped, “too much,” and Harry ended the spell, kissing his shoulder and his neck and pressing into him slow and smooth, almost gentle. 

Severus reached back between his legs, a reach he wouldn’t have had the flexibility for before yoga and Swoop!™, and gripped Harry’s balls firmly, massaging and pulling as Harry keened and whimpered, and then all at once he let go and slipped forward, turning over quickly and bringing his knees up wide. “I find I want to see you,” he said.

Harry smiled. “I always want to see you,” he said, pressing back in. 

\-- 

"Meatless Mondays? We're not." Severus pulled a face as he fed, apparently, the only meat in their evening plans to his new owl, Osric, who took it and grumbled at him in the expected manner.

Harry shrugged. "It's supposed to be healthy and as I mean to keep you forever, that seems like a good idea. It was even on Wilting's second list, once he was convinced you were a Swoopaholic for good." He grinned. "I'll make it up to you..."

Severus's scowl deepened. "Are you and Wilting conspiring?"

"Nah. Although his last plan was good for both of us, right? So like, would it be bad if we were?"

"It was," Severus agreed. "It was. And yet, I'd prefer not to be the subject of machinations. Still, mashed soy product?"

Harry shrugged again. "We could mash chickpeas instead?"

"Or we could eat a chicken in the first place."

Harry smiled. "I dunno, when it comes to cocks I was thinking more suck, less eat. For making it up to you."

Severus groaned and took a bite of his curry. He was cooking tomorrow, and there was going to be steak.

He’d need the energy, after all. He was teaching his first full class on Thursday. Emma had promised to attend.

**Author's Note:**

> Tagged content:
> 
> Sex work: There is a point at which in discussing their pasts, Severus indicates that he briefly did this kind of work as his DE associations made it hard to find more traditional work; however, he found that most of his clientele wanted to hurt him, also for his DE associations, and so he left that. Harry is clear that his clientele were assholes.
> 
> Past sex behavior: Harry indicates that post-war he had a lot of sex with a lot of people. This is in no way considered a point of shame by either of them.
> 
> Broom sex: one of their mutual acquaintances has a sex injury acquired during "acrobatic" sex, and it seems likely they were on a broom at the time.
> 
> Meatless Mondays: are a thing. They're not MY thing, and Snape has some big mood on the topic of veganism (the mood is: hell no), but I hope it's clear I don't think you suck if you're vegan/vegetarian.
> 
> Exclusivity of relationships: Severus becomes jealous over Harry interacting with a person who is from Harry's past; however, Harry is not cheating even though Severus briefly thinks he must be.
> 
> Re: getting in shape and exercise: my goal here was not and is not to give Snape a makeover. No one is obligated to look beautiful or to be healthy for the entertainment of anyone else or to be worthy of love and sex, and also the relationships between well-being, body size, and exercise are more complex than the ads want you to think. Anyway, Harry is not here for Snape's hot bod. Snape is initially slightly here for Harry's, but not really and not ultimately.
> 
> If you need more information, I can also be found on tumblr, dreamwidth, and gmail under this username.


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